October 2017 spread – stamping in black and pink

As always, things did not go through without making mistakes and smudging. Nevertheless I survived and the layout is okay. I would have liked not to do the same mistake once again – I always seem to make too many boxes for days. I first looked at the calendar and noticed I need to draw 3 days to the last week of October. Well, the first box in my reference marked the week number, so there should have been only two days.

As if this was not enough, I accidentally draw the top line for a fourth day before I realized this… So I fixed it by stamping a flag in the end to put in a motto or something to cheer up. All fine? No. Writing the numbers I noticed they do not add up and found out there was still a day too many. I decided to put a reminder there to hang Christmas lights, as that was what came to my mind about what should be relevant in the end of October. Ugh. I added a motto but it ended up looking very messy so I covered it with a sticker and rewrote. I still hated it, as the motto looked very naiive written in italics… I confess getting back a week later and putting a sticker on it.

I used Crayola SuperTips markers to add colour around the squares. I chose a slightly darker colour to identify the weekend visually. Any color pen could be used for similar effects.

Next, I trimmed some orange post-it stickers to match the size of the square and attached them to the spread to protect the squares from the stamp.

I used stamps and Versafine black ink to stamp the tree over the grid.

Here is how the stamped image looked like before removing the post-its.

I have organized many of my stamps into CD covers.

Supplies: Stamps; DoCrafts Papermania – Birdsong – Blossom Tree; Scrappy Cat – All Caps Graphic Style. Unfortunately these were bought more than 5 years ago and are not sold anymore. Ink: VersaFine – Black.

Next, I removed the post-its, and put a scrap paper in between the journal to make sure all ink is absorbed and dried. Then I continued by adding page numbers. I used the lighter Tombow Fudenosuke brush pen (navy barrel) to write the numbers.

A little bit less ink would have been good, the stamp bleeds through quite a bit.

Next I used alphabet stamps to create the heading. “Lokakuu” is October in Finnish.

I used stamps to create the bids that sit on top of the boxes, because I have them and I am not that confident in drawing. However it would be super easy to create such bird silhouettes just drawing them.

I simply colored the stamped birds with the Tombow Fudenosuke. I love it as it does not bleed through the pages of my Leuchtturm.

Aren’t they cute?

Here is the layout before I fixed the ugly square I did not like. On the right I have a column to write down the goals for the month.

Here is my October spread finished and in use. I love it!

What do you think?

Post a comment and leave me and my readers a link to your October layout!